 Somewhere I have a round ruler to do that with I can't find it it's with the art transfer paper somewhere I don't know so I have here I have here one of Shannon Green's custom keepers it is one of the plain white ones oops dang it and I'm trying to center this watercolor box on here it's pretty good okay I'm gonna draw a line around it and something that's actually sharp because that's not sharp enough let's see it was one of the plain white ones and I painted it with some blue different shades of blue and also white acrylic paint now what I want to do is I'm gonna paint the center black this is just some black gesso because we're gonna do a dot Mandala on design on here and um Shannon doesn't know I'm doing this she hasn't paid me to do this in fact I bought the custom keeper with my own money she may not like it she may not appreciate it she may decide you know she hates it when she gets it but I just want to I paid for the custom keeper I'm gonna decorate it and send it back to her she can use it as a display she can auction it off for money to help her and her husband with their business it doesn't matter I'm just doing this because I want to not because she asked me to or anything so first thing I want to do is I want to paint the center black it doesn't have to be perfect but I do sort of wanted a round shape so I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna let it dry and then I'll be back okay so here I am using a generals white charcoal pencil to draw some guidelines on the black gesso circle and then we're gonna take some dotting tools which you can see on the table to my left and some acrylic paints which you can see right above where I'm working and we're gonna literally just start making dots of paint I didn't mix the paint with any mediums or anything I know a lot of dollar artists do but this is craft paint so it doesn't really need to be thinned down that much that being said if you added a medium to it it would leave the open wet time longer it would not dry so fast and that might be good for you depending on how you work and if it was thinner you would want to add a little bit of a thicker medium like a gel medium to it but this craft paint in my opinion was a really good consistency to work with and do this with so I'm just picking colors at random I really don't have a plan I really don't know what I'm doing I'm just playing I end up not using those last two colors and using actually white and black instead so then it's really easy to get started and you just start with a dot in the middle I'm using these flat dotting tools are meant for making dots of paint you really you just dip them in the paint and then touch them to the surface that you're working on they work really well the acrylic paint will flatten out somewhat as it dries but you can push the paint around and get it flatter with one of the smaller dotting tools I didn't do that but you could again I'm brand new at this so I don't have any idea what I'm doing and doing my on Dala is a series of geometric not geometric a series of patterns and an even a series of marks and an even a pattern in a circle and so that's what we're going to do only with dots you can see here I used a baby wipe to wipe off that original dot because I did a crappy job on it so I end up wiping it off with a baby wipe and then doing it again and you can see right there that the white chalk pencil or white yeah white charcoal pencil comes off really easy so here I'm using one of the smaller dotting tools to just sort of push the paint around and get a nice smooth circle because again I'm new with it at it by the time I end up at the end of this I figure out how to use the tools and actually they work really well so then I'm going to just take various colors and different sizes of dotting tools I'm going to use the lines I created on the black circle as a guide to try to keep my design even and symmetrical that doesn't last super long I'm an abstract impressionist style of artist in the first place so neat even and geometric and yet clean they're not really my thing but that being said I do find this an interesting challenge and I will definitely be doing it again so there you can see that if you wet the dotting tool and do your first big dot and then don't reload it and do it successive three or four dots you can they'll gradually get smaller and smaller because there's less paint on the tool you can clean up your paint boo boo's with a wet q-tip I do recommend more of a calm cosmetic q-tip that has a pointy end it's easier to get into the tight spots at the time of filming this I did not have any of those so I used what I had and I busy myself creating the first layer of dots covering the whole entire circle and then letting that dry and I don't get very far before I do also some designs on the corners I start with doing the layer of black first of course and then layering a first layer of dots as I did in the center and then let the whole thing dry in between layers because not only will your paint not smear but if you want to wipe things off on the next layer if you do more layers the underneath layer is dry so it's not going to really go anywhere so there you have it okay so this is round one I am going to go back over it and do dots on top of dots I will say two things number one this is totally fun I could see me doing a lot more of this number two how cool is that going to look on the custom keeper on the spine I love these tools I didn't pick up my old dotting tools not once that doesn't mean I won't when I go back over and do the second layer but these plastic ones I love them they are great I'll put the link for them in the description below they're a little bit pricey and you might be able to find other things that you could use I saw one video where she uses crochet hooks that have a flat end on the backside you could also if you have a hardware store nearby that sells plastic like Dowling I don't know what it's not called dowels but it looks like a dowel but it's made out of plastic you could buy that in different sizes you could probably use wooden dowels in different sizes anything that's like round and flat basically and then you know something that's pointy these are some of these are clay tools some of these are painting tools some of these are nail tools and then I also have these which are from Hobby Lobby oops I'm okay with these but they're only good for one pass there's something about these plastic tools that hold just enough paint to get three or four graduating size dots without redipping anyway we will continue on for you it will be just a second for me it will be a little hour or so we'll let all the paint dry and I will be right back oh and I'm also trying we're going to experiment and see if like with a wet paintbrush when you're painting your house if you don't know what I'm talking about when you're painting your house if your paintbrush is wet and you just need to let everything dry you want to go back with that same color in a couple of hours or even the next day you can put the paper they paintbrush wet with paint on it into a plastic baggie squeeze all the air out and zip it shut and it actually stays wet moist for at least a day sometimes too this is the palette the paint was on I put a baby wipe in there for moisture sucked all the air out do I think it's gonna work no idea but it's an experiment we'll find out when I come back all right I'll be back okay then once everything was a dry including the black dots you can see I added to the corners I started layering contrasting colors of dots on top of the prior dots I'd already made starting of course with the bigger ones and graduating down to some of the smaller ones I don't do all of them I do just some of them enough to make it interesting and I do the center part first because I just instinctively know if I do the corners first I'm gonna stick my hand in it which I think I edited out of the video but I did stick my hand in it a couple times but because the bottom layer was dry I was able to just wipe it off with a baby wipe and if there were any touch ups it was very minor ones so I just continue on having fun I have the radio turned up loud and I am just making dots and having a good time it was pretty before but adding the second layer of dots makes it even more interesting so if you're gonna experiment with this I would say try both ways you might prefer one way over the other I can't wait to watch some videos with different patterns in it some of the other YouTube artists have created and or looking up interesting patterns on Pinterest and having my hand at trying different ways of doing this here you can see I have just about completed the corners and it is looking really good once that's done it just needs to dry thoroughly and I let it actually dry overnight and then I can give it a few clear coats of a finish and I decide to use Deco Arts triple thick the first few coats are watered down and then once those are dry then I do a sort of thicker coat of that and I top it off with Doralins Art Wax which you dry as hard and doesn't reactivate with heat which is perfect for an application like this and once that's dry you can buff it out and you're good to go okay guys so here it is don't you just love it and I'll see if I can do this without messing it up won't it make a great traveler's notebook cover so anyway I have stuck my fingers and things a couple times and had to go back and fix them and I'm gonna try not to do that again I'm gonna let it dry and then I'm going to clean up the backside I did put tape on it but I still got a little bit of schmutz on the back that's a technical word isn't it schmutz finished item by the time you all see this this traveler's notebook custom sorry not traveler's notebook hello this custom keeper should be on its way back to Shannon Green and I hope she likes it and can use it and or sell it to raise money I'll make sure to sign the inside and yeah just gives you some idea of what you can do you can do dot work with just basic tools if all you have are the ends of pencils or some doweling you don't need anything super fancy that being said there's some really cool tools out there but give it a try because I think it's a lot of fun me I thought we were done filming so I just I did what I said it wasn't going to I wasn't going to take a baby wipe to it but you know what I'm just barely touching it and all of that white charcoal pencil is coming you spots I think I want to take the white paint which honestly is almost dry but that's okay and I'm not going to mix things super well but okay so the next thing that we need to do is protect what we've done on here I got most of the paint off the back as you can see a little baby wipe and a little bit of rubbing alcohol make sure you don't get the alcohol on the front side because it will take that paint off to I also took a little bit of a sanding file to the edges to clean up the rough edges and we are good to go but now I've got to figure out how to clear coat it so let me think on that I'll be right back I almost forgot to turn the camera on oops so I sprayed the custom keeper with water now that it's dry and I have some deco arts triple thick I spritzed it with water because this is really sick and if you do one layer or two that are watered down just a little bit it'll self level it'll cover really nicely you can go over it with a third coat that is lost my turn of thought with a third coat and it'll make it look like it's covered in resin without actually covering in resin and getting resin out something either wasn't dry my brush is contaminated or there are schmutz on the mat because there's a slight cast to the triple thick any one of those is a distinct possibility okay guys I'm gonna have to walk you through what I did because my video camera kept running out of juice I did catch most of the cover creation on camera and you've already seen that if you're watching this it was a lot of fun I did end up putting three coats of deco arts triple thick on the cover and then I put a layer of Dorland wax hopefully that holds up and protects the cover and things don't crack and I guess only time will tell it looks like it's okay these things usually hold up pretty well but we'll see I guess anyway I love the way the cover turned out and it feels I it's it feels really cool I mean I don't know what to say about that but it feels really cool anyway I was gonna just paint the cover and then send it back to Shannon like I said in the beginning of the video she has no idea I'm doing this if you're watching this she's already see received the cover and I don't know at the time I feel me this I have no idea how she's gonna round she may love it she may hate it she may throw it out she may auction it off she may use it as a show sample I don't know what she's gonna do with it I just want to support my friend so I bought a cover I decorated it and I'm gonna send it back it's my way of supporting her in her business I don't want the money back Shannon if you're watching this and you send me the money back I'm gonna be so upset with you don't do that so anyway I was gonna just do the cover and send it back to her and I thought you know I had a brilliant idea last night well I think it's brilliant you guys let me know in the comments below when we were moving I put together a household journal and you know over the years that we've had a house together Bob and I have had different versions of this and sometimes they included a budget and couponing and sometimes they didn't it just depended on where we were in our lives and what kind of financial situation we were in to be honest so I decided to recreate a sort of a household budget out of this and I made inserts to get to go with it now as part of the aha moment I had for making this I did create a sticker sheet this this one here that has sort of washi tapes to type stickers on it and then a bunch of different labels section labels including the months of the year on it and it also comes with two different calendar downloads so you have everything you need to create using papers you already have in your stash or spare notebooks and you'll see in a minute that's what I did a little bit of both to create your own sort of household notebook so this is what I did so the first thing I did was with blank envelopes this is something I learned a long time ago maybe even from Shannon to be honest I took two of these craft cardstock envelopes any two envelopes I took I happen to use these these are a seven envelopes five and a quarter by seven and a quarter I took one and I tucked that cover onto the inside and glued it down yeah then I took the other one I put glue on just the flap and I glued the two envelopes together where the fold of that flap is I put a little bit of masking tape along the seam to reinforce it and on the backside I use some of the washi stickers to decorate this other edge I have a bunch of these steep clear sticky plastic pockets these are actually from a Target bin dollar bin like two years ago or last year I don't remember when I when I come across these I'd like to get them they do have them at Amazon I will link what products I can in the description below and I put one clear pocket on the outside I use some of the section labels like if I was going to have this for my household I'd have an envelope for receipts and I would probably have a pocket here if there was say a gift card receipt or something that I needed to return like I wanted to have more readily accessible so I put a pocket here that other receipts would go here until I got home business contacts maybe business cards postcards notes that sort of thing passwords I always seem to like need passwords I don't know what the deal is maybe it's a store rewards card password or something but you have a secure envelope here you can tuck the piece of paper underneath nobody sees it and nobody really knows is going to know it's there except you I mean it does say passwords but still who's going to be looking in here but you and your family there's another sticky pocket another tuck space for coupons and store cards I do still like to coupon so that's and if you want to put the store cards not in here but back here there's a another clear plastic envelope I put in a lined notebook for notes and lists and projects I seem to always need this in the household journal so whether it's just the honeydew list or notes about a project or something you want to fix or buy or prove or something about your house maybe notes to yourself and your family about why you're on a budget in first place and what your goal is what you want to accomplish if the camera's a little wiggly sorry about that I guess I'm bumping the table this pink notebook I had in my stash I created a household calendar this is something I definitely seem to always need in the kitchen so here we have a household calendar all 12 months of 2019 with a pair of blank pages in between this is one of the two calendar downloads that's available with the stickers and then I've used some of the stickers to decorate the pages so I did though I went and did the whole month the whole year and then this last one is a household budget this is a notebook I made the cover is a file folder and then I printed these budget worksheets that I found it just was a free printable I found from somewhere on the internet there's a bunch of different ones so you could find the one that works for you and I printed them on cardstock and then I folded them in half and I got 12 of them one for each month and I put them in here and I just did a simple three-hole pamphlet stitch binding you could staple it you could not bind them at all because it's being held in by elastic and I made sure to sign it so I am going to close it up I'm going to send some of the extra budget worksheets because I printed too many and also a sheet of labels and the custom keeper back to Shannon and I guess we'll find out what she thinks that's it I hope it gives you some ideas of what you can do I definitely I'm also as I said earlier going to go and I'm in a link Shannon store in the description below she and her husband are starting their own business trying to support themselves that way which I think is a wonderful thing so I would appreciate it if you all go out there and try to support them if you can support all your small businesses your mom and pops there's a number of them out there and I try to do that when I can and when I have the budget for it I'm sure would appreciate you all doing that too so all the relevant links are in the description below don't forget to like share and subscribe hit the little bell icon if you want notifications of new videos and above all go out and have a great day do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later bye guys